


To Do With the Color Red

by all_my_ships_are_sinking



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant (Mostly), Canonical Character Death, Coping, Drinking, Everybody Dies, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Group Sex, M/M, Metamorphmagus Sex, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Multiple Partners, Not Love, Open Relationships, Other, POV Multiple, Pansexual Character, Red - Freeform, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love, War, everyone is pan, literally no one is happy, sort of canon compliant, using people, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4935655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_my_ships_are_sinking/pseuds/all_my_ships_are_sinking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James uses Sirius, Sirius uses Remus, Remus uses Tonks, and really, Lily always knew that this would all go down in flames eventually.</p>
<p>Angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Do With the Color Red

**Author's Note:**

> This is really angsty and mostly self-indulgent, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. (aka, I hope it makes you really sad)

_To Do With the Color Red                                                                                                                                                                                                                               by: Eva Jones_

_Red._ The bridesmaid dresses that Alice designed that would most certainly _never_ be worn by any bridesmaids were a dark, garish red. If you asked Peter, he would probably say they looked like red wine. James would say they looked like Gryffindor, and Remus would probably say they looked like blood. If you asked Sirius, though, he'd say that they looked like Lily Evans's hair - the dark, sickening, soul-eating red that made James fall in love with her. Because really, that's what this was all about.

Because James had always liked red, and Lily's hair was red, and so _of course_ James liked Lily. And because James liked Lily he was going to marry her, and the wedding was probably going to be beautiful and happy with groomsmen in suits and bridesmaids in decidecly not-red dresses, and James was probably going to smile at her and stare in to her sickeningly Slytherin-colored eyes and Sirius was probably just going to get drunk. And once he was drunk he was probably going to end up in bed with a stranger, probably one of Lily's muggle bridesmaids, and he probably wouldn't even remember her name by the morning because even if she was thin and blonde and gorgeous, which she _probably_ would be, all he would remeber would probably be messy dark hair and chocolate eyes and quick, slightly violent wank sessions in a dorm the color of Lily Evans's hair that felt like they happened a milion years ago and yesterday at the same time.

A small, childish part of his mind that he usually avoids listening to ponders rather dying his hair **red** would have made a difference.

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Remus looks at the painted red mug that contains his Earl Grey in a pathetic attemt to pretend that he doesn't see Sirius leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. It's not that he doesn't _want_ to see Sirius - he just doesn't want to see him like _this._ He's a shadow of his former self, and though Azkaban certainly had something to do with it, Remus knows that it's _so much_ more than that.

Because Remus knows Sirius, he always has. And so he knows that Sirius is messed up, that he's out of his mind, that he smokes and drinks a lot more than he should, and that he doesn't know what love _is_ \- doesn't have a clue. And so when Sirius gets drunk and holds him and kisses him he knows that it's not _quite_ enough, not quite _real._ And when they're alone at Grimmauld Place and Sirius gets even _more_ drunk and yells at him because his eyesight isn't bad enough and his hair isn't dark enough or messy enough and he's never been all that good at Quidditch, he knows exactly what he's talking about. Still, when morning comes and Sirius says that he's sorry, that he didn't mean it, that he _loves_ him, Remus can't bring himself to argue or point out what he knows.

And moments later when Sirius pushes off the doorframe, walks over, shoves Remus against a wall and kisses him, Remus doesn't care that he knows why. He lets himself believe that Sirius does it because he loves him, or even that he does it to shut him up, and not because even though it's only eight o'clock in the morning Sirius's breath doesn't smell quite right and there is an open bottle of firewhiskey on the living roo table and that can only mean _one thing_ -

And the stupid **red** mug crashes to the ground, splashing still-hot tea all over his legs, and Sirius bites his neck and says a name that isn't even _close_ to Remus's own, and Remus finds he doesn't mind at all.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tonks smiles slightly as Remus puts his hand on her oversized stomach, feeling their baby continue to kick just inside. He smiles back and tells her that he loves her, just like he always does. Some people might have said he was cruel, always leading her on like this, but she knows that that's not true. She knows that Remus is nice - too nice, even. He's too nice not to tell her he loves her, too nice not to _believe_ it. And she knows that.

And she knows that he uses her to avoid his problems, and that people might call that cruel, too. But it really isn't, because there is a _war_ going on and they all have problems and they all have to deal with them one way or another, and at least he's trying to make her happy while he does, trying to help her avoid her own problems at the same time. And he's too nice for it to mean anything else.

And if his only shortcomings are that he smokes a bit and spends too much time in Sirius's old bedroom - there's also that whole werewolf thing, but _really,_ no one thinks less of him for it but himself - then she really can't complain. He did give her a child, after all. She always wanted to be a mother, and he would make a splendid father, as well.

Except they never make it that far. And as they lay there, slowly dying for life and for freedom, she absent mindedly thanks Remus for suggesting Harry as the godfather, because she knows that her son will be well taken care of, well loved. The rest of her is focused on the deep blackish- **red** surrounding the tower, even draining from some of her own wounds. And she knows that when they're both dead, wherever they end up, her Remus won't be _her_ Remus anymore. He'll be with Sirius once again, she knows. But that doesn't stop her from whispering her final _I love yous_ and holding his hand as they die.

Because that's the _nicest_ thing to do, really. And just like Remus, Tonks has always been just a little bit too nice.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lily gingerly blinks awake - well, as awake as you can be when you're dead - and she's not suprised, really, because she always knew that all this would go down in flames someday. And maybe they're all lucky that it happened here, now, in this life-after-life, where thoughts weave your reality.

But thoughts are not all happy, and many of them conflict. She thinks about last night (if it can be called that), and looks around at the pure white bed that certainly was not what she had thought of when she conjured it. Then she looks over at the woman beside her, and decides that, as women go, she could do a lot worse than Nymphadora Tonks. Her face is plain, now, and girly, and not at all like it was when they fell asleep - an ever-changing mirage of Sirius and James. Even farther over, on the other side of the bed, is Remus Lupin, and she really _was_ always fond of him. He's quite attractive, too, if you _really_ look at him. She knows that somewhere, in another dream land, her husband and his best friend are probably waking up in similar states, though judging by the way they were going at it last night, a good bit more bloody.

And maybe tonight they'll switch places; she'll be out there with her real husband and Sirius will be in here with Remus and Tonks who's not really Tonks at the time, and it will be wonderful for a while. Because that's who James _is,_ he can't make up his mind, and they love him anyway. And James loves her and Sirius, and Remus loves Sirius just a bit more, and Tonks likes Remus, but most of all Tonks just loves love, even if she has to become someone else to receive it.

Maybe someday they'll all end up in bed together, because it's _bound_ to happen at some point. And maybe she'll go back to Severus one day - after all, they do have forever. And then Sirius will have what he always wanted, and Remus will have an eternally Sirius-shaped Metamorphmagus that's never _quite_ right, and he'll love her anyway.

And this is probably selfish, but if she and James had to go down in flames eventually, then she's glad that they at least got to bring all of their friends into the fiery **red** with them.

Except for Peter, but Peter's a bitch.


End file.
